Operant Conditioning In Psychology

Operant conditioning is something that is used in different areas of psychology. Operant conditioning is a method of learning through rewards and punishments. A connection is made between the behavior and the consequence. When most people hear consequence, they think of punishment but there are good consequences as well. For example, if someone saves money each paycheck the consequence will be that they have more money in their bank account. There are bad consequences and positive consequences for behavior. Now think about the struggles that children with autism have. Children with autism do not know better sometimes, so people must teach them. The best way to teach children with autism good behaviors is operant conditioning. Applied Behavior

When a child with autism is acting out or doing something that is socially unacceptable the care-taker, teacher, or mother can ignore the behavior or find a replacement behavior to reward. In a study called “operant conditioning techniques applied in the treatment of an autistic child” psychologist looked at a young boy named jerry. Jerry had autism and his mother needed help. They constructed a twelve-month program to help jerry. They focused on three things. The first thing in their experiment was conventional milieu therapy on Jerry five days a week, the second was play therapy two or three times per week, and the third was psychotherapy for the mother. The first item they focused on was that at all times the child was in a controlled environment. A controlled environment for a child with autism is important because one does not want to set the child off and create an unneeded break in the therapy. The second item is important for children with autism because one of the main problems with autism is the social barrier. Playing with others and communicating is an important life skill for children with autism. The last thing they focused on is just as important. Parent training on operant conditioning. If the parent is not trained, then when the child goes home she will not know the appropriate way to reward or punish the child. For example, in this article Jerry often threw tantrums for not

This will lead to outbursts from the child. The term for communicating what one wants is Manding. “Manding for information is a skill that is often lacking in children with autism. Teaching children to mand for information can help with increasing social interaction, learning advanced language skills, increasing communication, and decreasing problem behaviors” (Marion, Martin, Yu, Buhler, Kerr, 2012). Manding is very important for children with autism because these children have wants and needs just like everyone else. If a person without disabilities could not communicate something they needed like food or water, they might have some sort of social outburst as well. One of the main problems for these children with autism is that they are unable to communicate. Not being able to communicate can cause behavior problems with children that have autism. The experiment had three children with autism that were able to communicate somewhat basic needs and wants. These three participants were able to speak, but it was limited to what they could say. All three of these participants became frustrated when they were unable to communicate their wants and needs. In the experiment they used trials of who, and where. They would have them play with something like marbles then take them away and hide them. Then the participants would have to say, “where marbles”. If they communicated